Miss Millie's Groom Page 2

  Back inside and onto a sweet course of Baked Alaska that Millie was glad she hadn’t missed, Aunt Rose looked upon the girl dubiously and announced, “You took your time.”

  “It’s this dress, Aunt Rose,” Millie responded immediately. “It’s hell. I went to the powder room and had a devil of a time adjusting it once I was done.”

  Aunt Rose raised her eyebrows at this disclosure and, out of earshot of Benjamin Windham, cautioned, “Millicent, don’t talk so or you will never make a society wife.”

  Millie smiled sweetly at her chaperon, took a mouthful of the pudding and savoured the taste of the sugary meringue and the sensation of the cool ice cream slipping down her throat. Downing a sip of the sweetest dessert wine, Millie registered Aunt Rose’s disapproval of what had, by Millie’s standards, been a considerable intake of wine that evening.

  How marvellous! She’d only really drunk the wine to stave off the boredom of a dinner sat next to Ben Windham but it had given her the courage to approach Ryan.

  And so, triumphing over adversity, Millie had resisted a kiss from a man she disdained and solicited one from a man she truly admired.

  In Millie’s small and orchestrated world, this was an estimable victory: her first kiss, delivered by the man she’d chosen, rather than one who’d been selected for her.

  Chapter 3

  The morning after the fine dinner, Glassnest Hall was abuzz with preparations for Sir Randolph’s hunt. Millie’s absence was first detected at breakfast but it wasn’t long before Effie approached Sir Randolph, telling him that his daughter sent her apologies but was afflicted with a migraine and so wouldn’t be joining the hunt that morning. Upon overhearing this disclosure, Aunt Rose rolled her eyes.

  Millie didn’t emerge from her room, on the top flight and in the furthest recess of the vast house, until she had watched –from the corner of her window– the horses depart from the courtyard, hounds swarming about their hooves as they set off.

  Once the hunt was underway, Ben Windham was no longer a threat to her peace of mind. Millie sensed there would be a nip in the air and so, pulling on a cape, she quitted the bedchamber and, taking the least-trafficked route through the house, emerged into the crisp, fresh, morning.

  Almost against reason, Millie headed straight for the stables, where she found a group of menservants taking advantage of the fact that the houseguests were now occupied for some time. Millie heard throats being cleared as her presence was detected. A couple of the young men instinctively threw down their cigarettes and stubbed them out with their feet. Millie felt a peculiar rush of power and had to stifle a smile. “Good morning, John,” she said brightly to the most senior man, “I wonder if you can tell me where Ryan O’Flynn is?”

  “I believe you may find him in the barn Miss,” came the response from John, along with a few muffled chuckles from the other men.

  A couple of minutes later, upon entering the barn, Millie soon discovered the source of the men’s amusement. Ryan lay, on a blanket spread out at the base of a stack of hay, sound asleep. Loitering in the yard and smoking was one thing but sleeping on the job would truly outrage Sir Randolph. Millie laughed to think of the men’s assumption that she would shop Ryan; to think of what they didn’t know.

  Throwing her cape onto the hay, she sat down beside Ryan and gazed upon his handsome face. He looked angelic sleeping, his looks and his locks so fair. Hovering over him, she softly stroked his cheek with the back of her hand and then tangled her fingers in his hair.

  He stirred.

  “Shhh,” Millie whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “Sorry Miss Millie,” Ryan said, disoriented, “I don’t know what came over me. I’ll get straight back to work,” and he made to stand up.

  But Millie pulled him back, saying laughingly, “No you won’t!”

  Ryan fell back into the hay and gazed up at her. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night,” he admitted.

  “Why?” she asked innocently.

  “Why!” he replied incredulously, shaking his head. “Did you sleep?”

  “Like a baby, thank you,” she replied, playfully.

  “Word in the big house is that you’re the worse for drink–”

  “Nonsense! I’m as fit as a fiddle. I just wanted to get out of the hunt. And I wanted to see you.” Millie stroked Ryan’s cheek again and smiled into his blue eyes.

  “Miss Millicent,” he began soberly.

  “Can’t you just call me Millie and drop the Miss? Effie calls me Millie – when we’re alone. I said to her one day, ‘How outrageous that you’ve seen me in my drawers but you still persist in calling me Miss’–” Millie remembered herself and saw that her rash talk had embarrassed the shy stable lad.

  Ryan had turned his face away from her. “This can’t go on, Miss Millie,” he said.

  “Why?” Millie replied softly.

  “Because I’m not your kind; I’m not of your rank–”

  “And what if I ordered you?” Millie announced with sudden imperiousness, reverting to the spoilt child she had not so long since been.

  Ryan’s response was characteristically measured and adult. “Well then it wouldn’t be what you seem to want it to be, would it?”

  She didn’t understand.

  “You seem to want love.”

  “Can’t you love me?” Millie asked with childlike simplicity.

  “Oh I could love you, alright,” Ryan said earnestly, “but it could never be truly fulfilled–”

  “Why not?”

  “Can you see Randolph giving his only child away to an Irish peasant?” Ryan paused, looking intently up into Millie’s eyes.

  She didn’t know how she could resist kissing him but, as she bent her head, Ryan said, “Miss Millie, don’t–”

  Millie started and, tears in her eyes, tried to rise from the blanket.

  “But please, let’s not part like this,” Ryan pleaded, reaching up and holding out his arm to her.

  She knelt before him, trying hard to control her sobs. “Do you want me or not?” she asked forlornly.

  Ryan sat up and, leaning on one hand, with his knee bent so as to encircle her body with his own, lifted his free hand to wipe the tears from Millie’s cheeks. “Millicent, are you sure you want me?” he said very earnestly.

  “Yes,” she replied decisively.

  “Are you certain you wouldn’t prefer your Mr Windham and all his finery?”

  “No,” she said firmly.

  “What do you see in me?” Ryan asked.

  Millie smiled, encouraged that he seemed to be retracting his decision to end things, and endeared by his lack of self-confidence. “Have you looked in a mirror recently, Ryan?” she replied, with a twinkle in her eye.

  He shrugged his shoulders dismissively and, shaking his head, said, “But I can barely read, Millie–”

  She placed her finger on his lips and said, “Shhh.”

  But he persisted. “All I know is horses.”

  Millie shuffled closer to him and shook her head. “Horses and women,” she said, her eyes now glistening brightly, not with teardrops but expectation.

  Laughing, Ryan collapsed back into the haystack. To Miss Millie’s delight, he pulled her down with him.

  * * *

  “And when I came to find you this morning, Millicent, I was informed by John that you were most probably with Ryan O’Flynn. What on earth were you doing with the stable lad?”

  “Groom, Aunt Rose; he’s a grown man, not a boy.”

  “Do her up tighter, Effie, or we’ll never see her married to Ben Windham.”

  Millie was leaning on the end of the bed frame as Effie reluctantly tightened her corset to extremity.

  “But I don’t think she’ll be able to breathe, Ma’am,” Effie protested.

  “Nonsense, do her up.”

  Effie tied the cords, whispering, “Sorry,” to Millie as she did.

  “I repeat, Millicent, what pray were you doing with Ryan O’Flynn?” />
  Millie, once Effie had finished tying the cords, pulled herself very slowly upright and answered dispassionately, “Talking about horses.”

  “Turn to face me, Millicent,” Aunt Rose directed, dissatisfied with her niece’s response.

  Millie did her bidding.

  “And look at me, girl. This evening is your last chance to impress Mr Windham. If you don’t do better than you’ve done so far it is all but a foregone conclusion that he will propose to Arabella Price instead of you.”

  ‘If only he would,’ Millie thought but didn’t dare say.

  “Put on her dress, Effie; the blue chiffon one this evening. Do we understand one another, Millicent?”

  “I think so,” Millie replied equivocally.

  Rose, in two minds whether to overlook her niece’s lack of total compliance, huffed dramatically and left the room.

  When she’d gone Effie let out a sigh of relief.

  “Believe me, Effie, I’d do the same if I could move,” Millie said.

  Without asking, Effie undid the cords of the corset and loosened it.

  “You’re such a sweetheart,” Millie said to the girl, sighing.

  “We don’t want you keeling over, Miss,” Effie replied. She adjusted the garment so that Millie could breathe more freely and just about bend. Millie stood quietly, enjoying the sensation of being liberated.

  As she tied the corset at the looser setting, Effie began tentatively, “If you don’t mind my asking, Miss, why don’t you like Mr Windham?”

  “Effie, the man is a bore,” Millie replied. “I have literally nothing in common with him. I’ve nothing to say to him.” She paused. “And I detest his over-enthusiasm for hunting.”

  “I thought they didn’t hunt in the summertime,” Effie said.

  “Yesterday they went cub hunting–”

  “Baby foxes?” Effie asked, alarmed.

  “Exactly. That’s the kind of man he is. My father would never have arranged the hunt if Windham hadn’t been here.”

  There was silence for a moment as Effie lifted the sky-blue chiffon dress over Millie’s head.

  “But he is handsome,” Effie pursued tentatively, once the dress was on and she was fastening it up.

  “You think so?” Millie replied dubiously.

  “I mean, he is generally considered to be handsome,” Effie qualified, growing, Millie noted in the full-length mirror into which she looked, rosy-cheeked at the mention of Ben Windham.

  “Do you think him handsome, Effie?” Millie asked playfully.

  “Yes I do Miss,” Effie admitted simply after a pause, hanging her head to hide her face in the glass as she spoke.

  “Well,” Millie said finally, “so long as I carry on doing abominably, he’ll hopefully be engaged to Arabella Price by tomorrow morning and good riddance to them both; we can all get back to normal.”

  Chapter 4

  “Would you like potatoes, Miss?” Ryan asked Millie awkwardly.

  “I would love potatoes, Ryan,” she replied enthusiastically, delighting in the look of disgust her exuberance elicited from Aunt Rose.

  Millie was once again at table with Aunt Rose opposite and Ben Windham to her side. But tonight was different because even Ryan had not escaped being called upon to serve. One of the butlers had gone down with a bug so the stable lad had been forced to don trousers, tails, shirt and tie, there being no hunt planned for the morning to provide him with a reasonable excuse to get out of serving duties.

  He leant over Millie and inexpertly attempted to serve her boiled potatoes. Millie smiled up at him inappropriately as he did.

  “Is that enough Miss?” Ryan asked.

  Aunt Rose tutted at Ryan’s lack of table etiquette.

  Millie beamed and said, “That’s lovely Ryan. Thank you.”

  Looking embarrassed, Ryan moved on to Ben Windham.

  Rose glared at her niece.

  “Yum,” Millie said, surveying her plate. “I do love partridge, don’t you Aunt?”

  Rose shook her head. “I think you shall not be having any more wine this evening, Millicent. It has quite obviously gone straight to your head. I wish they’d hurry up with the vegetables and then we could start. Some solid food may bring you to your senses.”

  * * *

  “Ryan,” Millie whispered through a crack in the study door as he passed along the corridor. His attention secured, she reached out her hand and pulled him into the dark room. Closing the door behind them, Millie led Ryan over to the window, where, the curtains drawn back, the light of the moon offered some illumination.

  “What are you doing?” Ryan asked, half alarmed, half awestruck by her behaviour.

  “Come here,” she said, positioning him in the moonlit window.

  “I’m expected in the kitchens,” he complained.

  “But you’re needed here,” she insisted, reaching up and kissing his cheek.

  “Millie,” he cautioned. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

  “Oh you’re so dull,” she chided affectionately.

  “So let me go,” he said.

  “Not until you’ve tasted this,” Millie replied, lifting a glass of Champagne from the window ledge and raising it to his lips.

  Ryan sipped it.

  “What do you think?” Millie asked.

  “Disgusting,” he replied.

  “I know; have some more,” she said.

  She raised the glass once more and, tilting it too acutely, spilt drink down Ryan’s chin.

  Laughing, he stepped back and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket.

  “You’re the most handsome man in the dining room, by the way,” Millie said.

  “Give over,” he replied modestly, adding, “You’re the most beautiful girl, it goes without saying.”

  “Why, thank you Mr O’Flynn,” Millie said, curtsying to him and then returning the glass to the window ledge.

  “Very curvaceous in that dress,” he elaborated.

  “Oh don’t you dare,” she said. “If you had any idea of the pain I’m withstanding to carry this off – and that’s not the half of it. It’s only because Effie took pity on me that I can breathe at all.”

  Ryan gazed upon her adoringly. Millie looked up at him proudly, saying, “But you really do brush up well, Mr O’Flynn,” and then standing on tiptoes to kiss him again.

  “We must go,” Ryan repeated.

  “Must we?” she whispered tiresomely into his ear, before placing a lingering kiss on his cheek.

  Ryan turned his head so that their lips met. Taking Millie in his arms, he lifted her off the floor. She was suspended in mid-air for one heavenly minute before he decisively set her back down and said, “Enough, I have to leave.”

  Without another word, he strode across the room and, once he’d checked the coast was clear, opened the door and slipped out into the passage, leaving Millie swooning in the dark.

  She took up the glass from the window sill and drank the remains of its contents, smiling stupidly up at the moon as she did.

  * * *

  Later that same night Millie picked her way along the woodland track that led to Ryan’s cottage, the bright moon her only guide in the darkness. The winds were strong and the rain drove into her face. She struggled to hold the umbrella so as to shield her, yet manage to see what she was walking into, whilst keeping the long, blue dress hitched up off the muddy ground. She had, at least, changed her shoes before setting out from the house but she hadn’t thought there time to change into more appropriate attire – that would have required Effie’s assistance, anyway.

  When she reached Ryan’s home, Millie, in stark contrast to the first occasion upon which she had knocked on the cottage door, tapped softly on the wood. She’d have to make herself heard above the wind but she didn’t want to disturb his grandmother, who would surely, by now, be sleeping. Millie was relying on a hunch she had that Ryan would still be up. She had learned from John that Ryan had been allowed by her father to go off duty
earlier than the other staff, in view of the need for him to rise early to tend to any houseguests who wished to ride before breakfast. She’d taken advantage of the commotion of the aftermath of dinner, to slip away to find him. But he wasn’t expecting her so there was an element of doubt in her mind.

  Millie knocked again, this time harder. A moment later the door opened. “You’re drenched, Miss Millie,” Ryan said, pulling her in out of the rain.

  “Do you mind my coming over?” Millie asked.

  “No, of course not,” Ryan replied, taking Millie’s umbrella and shaking it out into the night, before closing the door. “Come and sit down,” he said, ushering her over to a fireside chair.

  “I’ll sit on the floor,” Millie said. “If I sit on a chair I’ll make it damp,” and she tried to get down onto the hearth rug but found that her corset restricted her movement.

  “Millie, if you sit on the floor, that dress will get filthy.”

  “I can’t get down anyway,” she explained, standing, frustrated, beside the fire. “Oh lord,” she mused, “by the time I get back Effie’ll have given me up for a lost cause and gone to bed so I’ll have to sleep in this insufferable contraption too.”

  “The corset? Can’t you take it off yourself?” Ryan asked, perplexed.

  “Not when she’s tied it so tightly.” Millie stood looking despondently into the flames dancing in the grate.

  Ryan walked over to Millie and, standing behind her, began to undo the fastenings of her blue chiffon dress. “I think we need to get you out of the dress and out of the corset,” he said, in a tone that wasn’t purely practical.

  Millie didn’t dispute the idea. She smiled as the fabric of the dress fell about her shoulders and gladly relinquished the garment once Ryan had lifted it up and over her head. He draped the dress carefully on the back of an armchair and then turned to face her.

  Millie began to feel self-conscious, realising that she had never before appeared in her undergarments in front of a man. Ryan, sensing her discomfort, began jovially, “Now for the greater challenge!” referring to the tightly-drawn corset that Millie wore on top of her chemise. But as he gazed upon the challenge, he couldn’t help but register her bosom heaving gently in its lacy frills and take note of the accentuated curves of her waist and hips.